1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus equipped with a camera rotatable at least in a vertical direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Imaging apparatuses have diversity of applications and are used, for example, as security cameras in various locations including banks, railway stations, supermarkets, convenience stores, and video game arcades. With the wide spread of the Internet, another prospective application of imaging apparatuses are web cameras for video image transfer.
One prior art structure of a security camera device is designed to allow pivotal rotations of a camera both in a horizontal direction and in a vertical direction, with a view to expanding the monitoring area (see Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Gazette No. H06-9264).
In the structure of this cited reference, a camera of a camera unit is supported in a vertically rotatable manner about a vertical pivot axis provided on one side of the camera unit. A control circuit substrate is placed on the other side of the camera unit opposite to the vertical pivot axis across the camera. This arrangement aims to downsize the whole security camera device. However, the layout of placing the vertical pivot axis and the control circuit substrate on the opposed sides of the camera unit has certain limitation in downsizing along the width of the camera unit. There is still room for further size reduction of the security camera device.